Rivals Challenge Boeing’s Bid

By Staff Writer | October 24, 2007

The U.S. Air Force chose Boeing’s Chinook to replace its aging Black Hawks for search-and-rescue missions. That included the addition of anywhere from 100 to 400 jobs and the expansion of the assembly line at Boeing’s Rotorcraft division. That was a year ago. Now, Lockheed Martin and Sikorsky, with the help of the GAO, have forced the Air Force to restart the bidding process and with 144 aircraft and countless jobs on the line, the re-bid seems unfair. “We won fair and square,” said Joseph L. LeMarca, a retired Air Force officer and Boeing Rotorcraft’s communications director, “We believe we have the best aircraft and that the war-fighters need it…We’ve got to get this process out of the hands of lawyers and back in the hands of acquisition folks.”